A Novel in 300 parts, give or take. Jasfoup the demon uncovers a zombie problem in Laverstone. What do you do when RentoKill refuse to get involved? Dust off your saber, that's what.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Frozen Bones

Under the first ice of winter on the frozen pond at the northern reaches of Laverstone Manor* lie the bones of goblins. Real life goblins that once sought to invade this plane from their realm in faerie, though none but Denizens can tell them for what they were. Mortals would mistake tem for pig or deer, and assume them washed over the falls.

They were killed in 1864 by the then Lady of the Manor, Melissa Waters (she now resides in the mausoleum) and her consort, Prince Valerian of the Outer Glades.**The battle lasted forty minutes with the goblins defeated 14:1. Prince Valerian didn’t make it.

Fortunately (for Harold at least) Melissa was already pregnant with her first daughter, Sophia. Lydia would come a little later when Lord Falgrove asked for Melissa’s hand in marriage. Happily, he got the whole woman.

* I say pond but it’s actually the catchpool of the River Laver waterfall and it drops almost two hundred feet from the higher levels of the hills. Oddly, the river loses much of its gusto as it leaves the woods, funneled by gullies and culverts until it leaves the town meek as a kitten and heads south to join the Isis and the Thames.

**It was such a poncy title I investigated – it turned out he wasn’t a prince at all but the third son of an agaric farmer. Still – he was good with a bow.